ADNOC Ruwais RFCC unit shut following leak, seen exporting straight run fuel

London - (Quantum Commodity Intelligence) – Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has sold several cargoes of straight-run fuel oil this week, after an outage on the Residue Fluid Catalytic Cracker at its Ruwais refining complex.

"There's a leak on the RFCC, but we don't how long it will be out for," said one trading source Thursday, noting a previous issue on the same unit resulted in exports of over 300,000 metric tons of straight-run fuel oil.

The RFCC can process 127,000 barrels per day (bpd) of feedstock, converting heavy fuel primarily into gasoline.

Ruwais has a design capacity of 837,000 bpd and is one of the largest and most advanced refineries in the world.

The plant runs primarily on ADNOC's own Murban crude grade, but this year has started experimenting with imported crudes in order to free up more Murban for export.

ADNOC and Murban equity holders have committed to around 1 million bpd of Murban exports to support the IFAD Murban futures contract, which launched in March.